Our Team

Professor Simon Ringer is the principal investigator of this project, and the University of Sydney’s Academic Director of Core Research Facilities. He leads the University’s strategic planning and operations of its high-end research infrastructure initiatives. He is also an academic member of the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, and University of Sydney Nano Institute.

Professor Xiaozhou Liao is a professor in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, at the University of Sydney, and a co-investigator of this project. His research involves using advanced electron microscopy techniques to examine materials at atomic resolution, laying the groundwork for the design of superior materials for applications including in the semiconductor, automobile and aviation industries.

Sophie is currently a Scientia Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney. Her research contributions are in processing-structure-property relationships of structural alloys. She was awarded her PhD from Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria) in 2012. After a short period of postdoctoral research and a role as leader of a group with strong industry linkages at the same university, she moved to UNSW in 2015. She holds two UNSW Grad Certs in Education and Management. She is a passionate student-focused teacher, editor of Journal of Materials Science, current TMS Phase Transformation Committee Vice Chair and active Materials Australia member.

Dr. Supriya Pillai received her PhD  from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney in 2007 in the area of Photovolatic Engineering. She has more than 15 years experience working in academia as a researcher investigating the optical, electrical and material property impact on the light harvesting performance of  solar cells. She was the recipient of the ARENA Research fellowship in 2012. Dr. Pillai has led and managed externally funded projects to successful  completions during her tenure at UNSW and Macquarie university. She joined the AUSMURI project in Oct 2021 as the Project Manager.

Andrew received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2014 and has since worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney and the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (MPIE) in Düsseldorf, Germany. Andrew currently works with Professor Simon Ringer on an AUSMURI project exploring the physical metallurgy of 3D printed metals. Andrew is using APT and other microscopy techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) and plasma focused ion beam (PFIB) to characterise metals produced via additive manufacturing.

Dr Cui is a Research Fellow at The University of Sydney. He obtained his PhD from Salford University (U.K.) in 2004. His research interest lies in the theoretical understanding of the chemistry and physics of a range of functional and structural materials via ab initio computational methods, including density functional theory and molecule dynamics.

Hansheng received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2019. As part of his role he is working on 3D-EBSD, EDS and SEM of Ni-based superalloys and Ti-6Al-4V.

Keita received his PhD degree from the University of NSW in 2018. His research focusses on high resolution TEM analysis of AM alloys.

Dr. Suqin Zhu is a research fellow in Prof. Simon Ringer’s group. Her research area is focused on revealing the structure-property relation of metallic materials and developing lighter, stronger, and tougher materials. She is interested in understanding the plastic deformation and strengthening mechanisms as well as embrittlement phenomena in steel, aluminium and magnesium. In recent years, she has been devoted to many projects with our international industrial partners. Her expertise in metallurgy and characterisation techniques, such as the state-of-art S/TEM and APT, is attributed to the high-quality research she conducts. She has many publications in highly-ranked journals in Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering, such as Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia.

Rosie has a Master degree in materials science and engineering from The University of Sydney. She joined the team as casual Research Assistant under Prof. Simon Ringer, helping us with the preparation and materials testing of our additively manufactured samples.

Kirk is investigating the sample dimension dependence on the mechanical properties of brass.

Nima is a senior research fellow in the School of Materials Science & Engineering. He was awarded his PhD in 2017 from Deakin University (Australia), for a thesis on thermo-mechanical processing of duplex stainless steels. He is a former Victoria Fellow and Alfred Deakin Research Fellow, and recipient of Thermo Fisher Scientific Cowley-Moodie award. Nima’s main interest is in-situ engineering of microstructures of steels, titanium-alloys and nickel-based superalloys, during 3D printing. He is the lead researcher of the UNSW-based team of our AUSMURI project on the role of interfaces during additive manufacturing.

Carina has a master’s degree in materials science and engineering from Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria) and a PhD from UNSW. In her master’s project, she studied high nitrogen stainless steels for oil and gas applications. She too worked with Sophie as undergrad research assistant for many years, even following her from Austria to Australia. She completed her PhD on advanced thermo-mechanical processing of modern HSLA steels with Sophie in 2020. After PhD submission, she pursued a job in the UNSW research grants and contracts office. However, she prefers research and is back with us as FIB expert for the AUSMURI project.

Felix joined the group in 2016 after completing a master’s in materials science at the University of Technology Ilmenau (Germany), initially as one of the first UNSW-based PhD students in Sophie’s group. He submitted his thesis on high resolution characterisation of strengthening effects in superalloys in 2019, corrections accepted February 2020. Felix’ key strengths are in industry-focused research on aerospace materials. He is an expert in high-resolution characterisation methods including atom probe, TEM and EBSD, and the go-to person for microscopy and metallography in our group.

Ally is currently an undergraduate student studying materials science and engineering/biomedical engineering at UNSW Sydney. She started work as a casual research assistant with the group after being awarded the Infrabuild Steel Research Activity in 2020, helping in various projects on additive manufacturing. Over the next couple of years, Ally will also complete internships at Infrabuild’s melt shop and rolling mill in addition to completing an honour’s project with the group in close collaboration with Infrabuild Steel.

Max moved to Sydney from the UK to start a PhD at the cutting edge of metal additive manufacturing research. His project applies advanced materials characterisation techniques to understand the complexities in the microstructure of 3D printed stainless steels. His keen interest in metallurgy was fostered at Imperial College London where he completed his combined (bachelor’s and master’s) materials science and engineering course (2019). His master’s research assessed the microstructure and fatigue properties of a high entropy alloy fabricated via selective laser melting.).

Nana was born and raised in Ghana. He obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Materials Engineering from Kwame University of Science and Technology (Ghana) and Hanbat National University (South Korea). His master’s research focused on developing a functionally graded material of Ti-6Al-4V and stainless steel using additive manufacturing. His current research is on in-situ characterization of additively manufactured Ni-based superalloys. He aims to simulate thermal and stress condition during 3D printing, to identify and understand the complexities in the microstructure evolution.

Michael grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and completed his bachelor’s and master’s degree at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His master’s thesis primarily looked at how scan strategy impacted the resulting annealed microstructure in additively manufactured soft magnetic Fe-Si alloys. He also did a 6 month stint at Max Planck Institute for Iron Research in Germany. His current research looks to manipulate and determine the roles of thermal and stress gradients in microstructure and phase selection for Ni-based superalloys printed using selective electron beam melting using advanced characterization techniques.

Ming is a PhD student who joined us in August 2021. His research focuses microstructural engineering via controlling the grain boundary character distribution in additively manufactured specialty alloys including stainless steels and Ni-based superalloys. Ming grew up in China and completed his undergraduate program in mechanical engineering and his MPhil at The University of Sydney. His previous research focused on the development of high-performance polymeric composites using 3D printing. He is excited to start working on a promising project via metal 3D printing in our team at UNSW Sydney.

Xinyi (Cindy) was born and raised in China. Her keen interest in metal additive manufacturing was fostered at The University of Sydney where she completed her bachelor’s degree (1st class Honours) in mechanical engineering (2021). Her honours thesis focused on microstructure-property relationships of additively manufactured high-entropy alloys. During her undergrad, Cindy secured two summer scholarships from Microscopy Australia, on metallic glasses and metal 3D printing. Her current research focuses on the micromechanisms of phase transformations in additively manufactured stainless steels and superalloys.

BEng (Hons) and PhD Engineering (Monash)

Mark Hodge has served as Chief Executive Officer of DMTC since its inception in June 2008, overseeing the organisation’s success in a range of activities centred on Australia’s defence and national security. He has led the strategy for DMTC’s transition to a sustainable industry capability partner as agencies across Government increasingly look to industry to support Australia’s strategic national security objectives. He is a tireless advocate for science and technology and its applications in advancing Australia’s national interests, and has worked in leadership and professional roles in the defence and aerospace fields for his entire professional career.

Dr Hodge serves on a range of advisory boards, committees and panels, including the Department of Defence’s Innovation Steering Group. He is a former Director and Deputy Chair of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Association. An author of several research publications on advanced defence materials, Dr Hodge is the recipient of several industry and research-sector awards and is a fellow of The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.

Dr. Anita Hill is a former Executive Director of the CSIRO (Commonwealth Industrial Scientific and Research Organisation) responsible for overseeing the strategic direction and investment across Manufacturing, Agriculture and Food, Health and Biosecurity, Mineral Resources, Digital Productivity, Materials Science and Engineering, Process Science and Engineering, and CSIRO Services which includes Education and Outreach, Publishing, Futures, SME Engagement, and Infrastructure Testing. Prior to that role she was Chief of Process Science and Engineering and served as an Office of the Chief Executive Science Leader. She is a former Director of AeHRC, NCEDA, VCSCM, and MSA. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a fellow of ATSE, AAS, and RACI. Her research is in materials and process engineering, structure/property relationships, and novel materials characterization technique development.

Dr. Janis Cocking, PSM, FTSE has over forty years experience leading and undertaking science and technology, particularly in undersea technology, for which she is an acknowledged international expert.  Her career started with research into the behaviour of Ni-based materials at high temperatures.  In 2016 she led the creation of the framework and launch of the 10-year, $730million Next Generation Technologies Fund for Defence. She was awarded the Public Service Medal in the 2018 Australian Honours for her outstanding contributions to Defence S&T.  In 2019 the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group created the Janis Cocking Award for Excellence in Leadership in recognition of her impact on and for Defence.

In 2006, Dr Zoran Sterjovski joined the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) as a Defence Scientist in Materials and Welding in the Maritime Division to work on structural life validation for the Collins class submarines. From 2016 to 2019, Dr Sterjovski was the DSTG lead for Submarine Platform Integrity in the Future Submarine Program covering areas such as pressure hull boundary materials, structural collapse, underwater shock, fatigue and environmentally-assisted cracking, and corrosion management. Currently, Dr Sterjovski is the Head of Computational Materials and Structures (CoMS) in the Aerospace Materials Branch within Aerospace Division at DSTG. CoMS provides expert S&T advice and innovative solutions to Defence to ensure that its aerospace platforms are operationally effective, structurally safe and sustainable.

Air Marshal (Ret) Harvey’s Australian Defence Force career spanned more than 30 years, with early emphasis on employment as a navigator and weapons officer in Canberra and F-111 aircraft and later in more diverse roles such as technical intelligence, military strategy, visiting Fellow Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, instructor at the Australian Defence College and Defence Attaché Southern Europe.

He has had extensive experience in the Defence capability development process in his appointments as Air Warfare Adviser within Force Development and Analysis, Director General Aerospace Development, Director General New Air Combat Capability, Program Manager New Air Combat Capability (NACC) and In October 2010, John was promoted to the rank of Air Marshal and appointed as Chief Capability Development Group (CCDG) with responsibility for requirements development and obtaining government approval for approximately 200 projects with a total value of approximately $200 billion.

Since retiring from the RAAF in 2012, John has completed a PhD in Computer Science at the UNSW (Canberra), has aerospace and defence advice to the Department of Defence as a Reserve Officer and acted as NSW Defence Advocate from 2016 to 2021.

Katja has a mineralogy background and has been working in atom probe and electron microscopy since 2012 on a wide variety of materials systems. She received her PhD from the University of Sydney in 2018 and joined the team in 2019 in the role as project manager.

After completing the B.Eng. degree in Biomedical at South China University of Technology, China, Dr. Zibin Chen obtained his MPhil and PhD in the University of Sydney, Australia. After his PhD, he worked in Scitek Australia Pty Ltd as an application scientist until he joined the University of Sydney as a postdoctoral research associate in August 2019. His expertise focuses on applying in-situ electron microscopy techniques to study the structure-properties relationship of various materials including metal, non-crystalline materials, semiconductors, and multiferroic materials. He will be majorly working on design and control of microstructure dynamic of additive manufacturing materials with in-situ electron microscopy.

Evangelia received her PhD in Engineering from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2019. She joined the 3D Additive team as Research Assistant under Prof. Simon Ringer helping with the analysis of atom probe microscopy data.

Qianwei received her PhD degree from the University of Sydney in 2020. She has extensive experience in in-situ TEM and has joined the team to help with in-situ TEM investigations of additively manufactured Ti alloys.

Yingluo was working in our team during her 4th year study of Biomedical Engineering (Hons) majoring in Chemical Engineering. She was working on Atom Probe data analysis of Ti-6Al-4V in Prof. Simon Ringer’s research group.

Siyu was part of 3D Additive during her time as honours student. Her research project was on using EBSD and TKD to look into the effects of cyclic thermal loading on the microstructural evolution of Ti-6Al-4V in 3D printing.

Cameron is currently in his 5th year of a double degree in BE(Hons)/BSc majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry.  When he first joined the team he was working as a research assistant under Prof. Simon Ringer working on the sample preparation and analysis of the Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel 738 alloys. He is now doing his honours project with us, looking at additively manufacturing Yttria-stabilised zirconia ceramics.

James is currently studying towards a Bachelor of Engineering (Aerospace) and Science (Mathematics) degree at the University of Sydney where he has developed a passion for materials and manufacturing. He has joined the 3D Additive team as a casual research assistant to help with the microstructural characterisation of additively manufactured alumina and Ti-64 via scanning electron microscopy.

Biying is a MPhil student of Prof. Xiaozhou Liao and has joined the team as casual research assistant.  Her work focuses on sample preparation and characterisation of AM alloys.

Ryan DeMott is originally from the U.S and completed a BS/MS in materials science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. His research interests include structure property relationships and grain boundary characterization in advanced metals. His current research includes the microstructural evolution of Ti-6Al-4V during additive manufacturing. He employs a variety of microscopy techniques including SEM, EBSD, 3D ESBD, Plasma FIB, TEM, and atom probe microscopy to characterize microstructures, across length scales and in two and 3 dimensions, in order to develop a thorough understanding of processing-structure-property relationships.

Liam was part of the 3D Additive team under the supervision of Sophie Primig, while completing his fifth year of a dual degree in Materials Science and Chemical Engineering. His thesis aimed to investigate variant selection of alpha phase in additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V through EBSD measurements and explain its characteristics by relating the microstructure back to the electron beam melting processing conditions.

Edward was undertaking a Material Science and Engineering honours Bachelor degree at UNSW Sydney, working within Dr Primig’s group as a research assistant. During his time with 3D Additive he was investigating the capacities of electron beam melting as an in-situ controlled heat treatment to induce desired strengthening precipitates within the as-printed microstructure of a Ni-based superalloy.

Mike joined us as honours student in the last year of his ‘Material Science and Engineering’ bachelor degree. His fascination in steel and the promising future of additive manufacturing is the reason why his honours project will focus on the microstructure characteristics of austenitic stainless steel processed by laser powder bed fusion.

Matt was conducting his 4th year honours work with 3D Additive, looking into potential non-destructive testing methods to test and validate additive parts. This project combines quality control and certification, a major focus of his degree and exchange to the University of Southampton, with the emerging technology of Additive Manufacture.

Chris is currently studying mechatronic engineering at the University of Sydney. He was working as a research assistant on the project, focusing mainly on sample preparation for Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel 738 alloys, as well as EBSD analysis for the Ti-6Al-4V.

Will uses atom probe tomography (APT), as a means of investigating the complex microstructure of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V. His work also aims to progress atom probe reconstruction, enhancing the spatial accuracy of APT data.

Bryan’s work is focused on rationalising the thermo-mechanical instabilities in electron-beam additively manufactured Ni-based superalloys by comparing the thermal history of the additive manufacturing process, with an the complex microstructures that arises. This will be carried out by using a variety of microscopy techniques; namely, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM ) & atom probe tomography (APT).

After completing his master’s degree at the University of Sydney, he is continuing as a PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Simon Ringer. The aim of his project is to investigate the microstructure and mechanical properties of an additively manufactured NiTi alloy via electron microscopy and other techniques. Hydrogen embrittlement phenomenon in this material will also be investigated with the help of cyro-atom probe tomography (APT).

James received his Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) (Honours) in 2019 from Western Sydney University where he developed a keen interest in thermal and fluid engineering and computational fluid dynamics. He also has experience working within the bulk fuel industry to aid in fuel system design and tank testing. James is now working as a PhD student to assist with the development of a tool for modelling thermal and stress profiles within additive manufacturing processes.

Hao’s research focuses on using advanced microscopy techniques to study the effect of cyclic thermal loadings on the microstructural evolution in additive manufacturing processes.

Samia completed her BS/MS in Materials Engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan. She is now conducting a PhD with 3D Additive under the supervision of Prof. Xiaozhou Liao, with her research focusing on using advanced microscopy techniques to study the microstructure and properties of 3D-printed equiatomic CoCrNi medium entropy alloy.